Money = Speech, Part II

Independently, within hours of Attorney General Rob McKenna’s announcement Monday of his lawsuit to stop federal health care reform, both my wife and I had joined Facebook groups and signed petitions opposing the lawsuit. We did so because we were appalled and angry that an elected official would unilaterally take a step, for crass political purposes, so completely at odds with the desires of a vast majority of the constituents he has taken an oath to serve, as well as almost all of the federal officials (8 of 11) those constituents have elected.

And today I open up our copy of the Seattle Times to see, in the first sentence of your editorial supporting McKenna, the anger and revulsion we have had in common with pretty much everyone I’ve talked with this week sneered at, in the editorial’s very first words, as a “politically orchestrated hiss.”

Fuck. You. Please cancel our subscription immediately.

Of course, Mr. Blethen, and his sycophants on the Times editorial board, have every right to espouse editorial opinions at odds with the majority of people in the city whose name stains your masthead. (Have you considered “Lubbock”? It’s a better fit.) We’ve come to expect it, particularly since the demise of the P-I. What you do *not* have the right to do is gratuitiously insult us, and expect that we will remain your customers, even as your news staff and coverage continues to shrink and other media outlets emerge that do a better job of covering almost everything you publish.

We have remained home delivery subscribers out of loyalty. This is how you view your loyal customers?

No wonder your business is failing. Don’t let us stop you. Please add us to your list of disgusted former customers.

If you’ve canceled your Seattle Times subscription, send a copy to me, or relate your phone conversation, and I’ll post it here on HA, with or without attribution.

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I canceled the Times preemptively. Before the “Do Not Call” legislation came along I was being bombarded by 3 or 4 calls a week from a telemarketing firm trying to harass me into buying a Seattle Times subscription. When I asked them to stop calling they ramped up the pressure. So I filed a formal complaint with the attorney general’s consumer protection division and they got the Seattle Times telemarketers off my back. (This was when we had a decent attorney general.)

Personally, I think the conservatives may have been onto something with their preemptive warfare, bomb ‘em before they bomb you, doctrine — the time to cancel the Times is before they get a nickel out of you. To celebrate my victory over their circulation department, I went to the public library and read that day’s edition from cover to cover for free.

I just want to add that the only other company as obnoxious in their marketing tactics as the Seattle Times is Comcast, from whom I’ve received over 1,000 pieces of junk mail, and not have responded to that, they’re now sending salesmen to my door, which now sports a “No Soliciting” sign so I can criminally prosecute the next Comcast salesman who rings my bell.

I would cancel, but I haven’t subscribed in years. At the Home Show earlier this month they tried to GIVE me a free subscription for several months, which I could cancel without obligation. I had to tell the saleslady that even free, it isn’t worth it.

I’m sad to see Goldy et al still carrying water for the corporatist agenda. Seattle Times is what it is, I’m still surprised that so many progressives will not acknowledge that this health care ‘reform’ benefits insurance companies first and foremost, with actual ‘people’ coming in a distant third or fourth (behind big pharma, for-profit hospitals, medical specialist, and perhaps most important of all, the democratic party need for a healthcare ‘win’ going into the fall elections). Already the insurance companies are weaseling out of covering children with pre-existing conditions. I wonder what weasel maneuver they’ll come up with next year? But hey, the Obama and dem leadership and assorted punditry say this is a great progressive VICTORY! Must be true.

“Nine suspects tied to a Midwest Christian militia … were charged with conspiring to kill police officers, then attack a funeral using homemade bombs in the hopes of killing more law enforcement personnel, federal prosecutors said Monday.

“The Michigan-based group … planned to use the attack on police as a catalyst for a larger uprising against the government, according to newly unsealed court papers.

“U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade said [FBI] agents moved on the group because its members were planning a violent mission sometime in April.”

I cancelled The Times when they endorsed Bush in 2000, as it was pretty obvious to me at least the man wasn’t even remotely qualified and had as his puppet-masters a group of “Haves and Have Mores” hell-bent on ruining everything our nation’s founders had intended in regard to greedy monied aristocracy running the show. When the P.I. went under, The Times circulation department started delivering it in its place, until I called to cancel again after they endorsed the ultra-slimball Susan Hutchinson….it took them almost six months, three more phone calls and a written letter before they stopped. Apparently there aren’t as many WingNuts as they’d like in their base…they’re getting pretty desperate with the free subscription offer calls…

@7: Grow up already. You are not a real progressive – you are a whining baby republican masquerading as a progressive.

Yes, the HCR bill is not ideal. SS was not that great either at first. But it does cover everybody and it does prevent the insurnace companies from offering lousy coverage, no pre-existing conditions and other decent attributes.

What is does not do is offer a public option to compete with the private insurers to hold down prices.

11
er, no this bill does not ‘cover’ everyone. Immigrants and children of immigrants are not covered. Oh yea, I forgot, they don’t count cause they are not ‘real’ people.

Please define what you mean by lousy health coverage. Does exorbitant rates and super high deductibles count as ‘lousy coverage?’ Because this ‘reform’ does nothing to control costs. Perhaps Obama will sprinkle magic fairy dust on the corporate HQs and rates will stabilize. I don’t know. And realize too that those who cannot afford to pay the deductibles are effectively not ‘covered.’ A study done in Massachusetts showed that a large number of people do not use their health care because they cannot afford to pay the deductibles.

By the time the requirements to cover people with pre-existing conditions really kicks-in, the insurance companies will have found a way around them. Maybe not in all states, but in many states given that enforcement has been left up to each individual state.

I recommend that you do not hold your breath waiting for the public option. The dems could have passed it this time, but they chose not to. They are too enamored of corporate silver, Obama especially. And despite their promises, it ain’t gonna happen anytime in the near or anytime future. We got screwed, and that is the long and short of it. I’m sorry. I wish I was wrong.

Just because I think this is a crappy bill that will not provide universal coverage at affordable rates, and does not represent a ‘first’ step to anything resembling real reform, does not make me a whining baby republican masquerading as a progressive. It means I’m not a hyper-partisan democrat. There is a difference. The democrats had a real shot at doing the right thing and they blew it. Wishful thinking will not change that.

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